The Government has announced an extra £2.35 billion to create more school places. This is in addition to the £5 billion that is already being spent in this Parliament. This means that between 2014 and 2017 schools in Buckinghamshire will receive £16.2m.
It is the first time that councils have had 3-year allocations of funding to spend on school places, so Bucks County Council can plan ahead and ensure every child has a school place. This Government has already created 260,000 new school places and this announcement means thousands more are on the way.
As Education Secretary Michael Gove has said:
Labour was warned repeatedly that they hadn’t done enough to plan for a growing population – and once more it’s been left to the Coalition Government to clean up the mess. Labour cut 200,000 primary places, slashed the amount spent on areas of population growth, and let immigration soar – and all this in the middle of a baby boom. The Government has, however, taken swift action to repair the damage. We have more than doubled funding for new school places and we are also setting up great new free schools, which are giving parents a choice of high quality school places in areas Labour neglected.
